The Trump presidency, and his absurd trade wars, are deeply unpopular in the US. I'd be shocked if most Canadians don't understand this fully and see Trumpism for the personality-driven anomaly that it is.
The democrats have shown little desire or ability to reverse GOP foreign policy once they get into power. They normalize those policies and keep the seat warm for the next mad man.
It isn't an anomaly. He was elected twice. He has done real damage. Hell, 1/3 of Americans don't even vote. Whether or not most Americans feel bad about it doesn't matter. Actual damage is being done.
Pollsters estimate that Republicans still have >30% chance of retaining the Senate majority. (Better than what pollsters gave Trump before he won in 2016.)
This isn't a deeply unpopular anomaly. This is a significant chunk of America, and they may easily regain the majority if the economy improves in a few years (or if it worsens further under a Democratic president).
"most Canadians" as a demographic is unable to grasp complexity. They are being rallied to the flag and they rally. Like everyone else these days they all have their echo chambers. It's an easy sell. This is just human nature.
Current day politics are about polarization. More so than ever. There is no room for nuance. This is what worked for Trump and this is what worked for Carney and the Liberals in Canada. The Liberals didn't win on some brilliant policies they simply won on anti-American feelings.
This is not a statement on who is right or wrong. There are certainly many aspects of Trump's behaviour here that most would say are wrong. The problem is when we lose nuance and debate we can't make progress. But a leader in today's world that introduces nuance loses to the leader that polarizes. Dragging us all down.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".
American re-elected him, despite the cronyism, jan 6, mental decline, etc. Combined with the democrats are so self defeating and they also repeatedly poked at trade issues (the loooooong running softwood lumber disputes, Keystone XL, "buy American" provisions that ignored NAFTA/USMCA for projects that were going ahead w/o the provisions, etc).
We know what populism is (we've experienced and are experiencing it ourselves) and know that it is usually fleeting, but we don't trust another "smarter" nativist president to come along and screw us again.
Also, there's an internal game going on here. Canada has (institutionally) took the "easy" way out of controversial projects, often due to our proximity to the US. This has meant that when some projects run into a greater than normal amount of political resistance (eg environmental fights against pipelines or LNG terminals), the default has usually been to back off. But Trump has in a way given cover to actually move forward.
I don't expect the next president to "cave" so easily. Even before he was sworn in, republicans had their messaging in full swing against Obama about the deficit. I fully expect the same thing to hammer the next president on trade if they're a democrat.
I don't see how Canada can trust us again without a major cultural and legal shift in the US. The fact is that any president can, apparently, unilaterally shred international friendships, and 30%-40% of Americans will cheer it on.
I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
The real problem is not just that, but that america chose to re-elect him. One time can be dismissed as a fluke or temporary situation. The reelection showed that this will be the status quo moving forward.
Yeah, as a Canadian I was willing to accept that 2016 was some sort of screw-up, but 2024 really sealed the deal. It told me that many Americans desired the constant chaos and classless antagonism.
> The fact is that any president can, apparently, unilaterally shred international friendships, and 30%-40% of Americans will cheer it on.
That's not the problem.
The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected. If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.
But instead of that we got TINA and Trump.
> I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
Easy: just repeal democracy. Make elected officials advisors at best, and vest all power in unelected officials that will uphold the status quo.
> The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected.
I agree with you and I wish more people would understand that Trump is only a symptom of the issue.
Its the same in Europe where everyone is somehow discovering in 2026 that the far-right and far-left parties actually want to do what they say they will do if they get in power.
Instead of addressing the concerns of the population, all they do is talk about how bad these parties would be and try every which way to contain them except never trying to even understand or fix the issues these people are complaining about.
It was the same strategy used by Macron in France in 2017 and 2022.
Step 1: Pretend you care and tinker on the margins but fundamentally don't change anything.
Step 2: Paint the opposition on the left and right as monsters that will bring chaos and disorder to the country.
Step 3: Present yourself as the only one capable of containing said chaos.
In one word: TINA
Except TINA is no longer working and the mainstream parties are being challenged a lot more because people have trusted them for so long and they are no longer interested in waiting for them to actually deliver on what they promised to do years ago.
So you get Reform in the UK, One Nation in Australia, National Rally in France, the AFD in Germany, Swedish democrats in Sweden and much more....
The parties in charge could have tried to address the issues that are fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe, they could have listened to the concerns of their citizens even if they did not agree with their ideas.
Instead, they have let the situation deteriorate and portrayed themselves as the only solution to the problems they never addressed and it backfired spectacularly.
> If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.
That might be america's problem but its not my problem. It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump. It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
> That might be america's problem but its not my problem.
I was responding to a self-identified American wishing America would return to the prior status quo. It seems like you're in the wrong subthread.
> It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump.
It's worth noting those dynamics aren't unique to the US.
> It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack). Some of the vibes I pick up around those topics come off as entitled, which is is not a good look.
> It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack)
yeah, that is how being a hegemon works. There are benefits and drawbacks to that, but lets not pretend like USA didn't get a lot of benefits out of the arrangement.
In any case, seems like that era is mostly coming to an end.
> It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack).
It's sounds just like you are believing your own propaganda. This behaviour was intended and encouraged by the US. They would still prefer for it to stay that way, even if they are saying otherwise domestically. Look how they try to sabotage the other countries, now that they try to actually uncouple from the US.
I'm Canadian. (Full disclosure: an immigrant, like many others here)
Are 30%-40% of Americans really cheering for shredding of the friendship with Canada? Is that supported by some specific survey or are we just looking at approval ratings or some proxy?
Isn't this more or less normal for the USA in the broader perspective? Certainly had some very weird presidents in the past? We had things like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement
I feel like we're just not living in normal times. The lack of normalcy is social media, conspiracy theories, politics. This isn't simply a US-Canada relationship question and "return to normalcy" isn't really just about "how do we ensure a certain level of quality of leadership". I'm not even sure what's normal any more ;)
"Our latest survey finds that 41% of Canadians now consider the United States an enemy country, up 15 points from June 2025. At the same time, 64% say their impression of the United States would change if Donald Trump were no longer president."
I find this insane. Also the weighting towards 55+, male, Quebec, is interesting. It says something about how humans are easy to influence IMO. Not exactly a surprise I guess looking at humanity as a whole but something I would have hoped we had some immunity to in free western societies.
US foreign policy has been pretty consistent since the end of world war 2. Whatever you may think of what is going on, it is a significant departure from traditional us policy.
And if you go to the 18th century we were both owned by Britian. idk what the point is of going that far back. The point is that America was pursuing one policy for about 80 years and now is pursuing a different policy. As a result everyone is re-evaluating the relationship in light of this.
I fact checked with AI as one does these days and at least the AGI supports you with the first Trump admin being what it identifies as a real change in policy since WW-II:
"In 2018, the Trump administration used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962—a rarely used Cold War-era law—to declare Canadian steel and aluminum a "national security threat" to the United States. These tariffs were not applied because Canadian steel companies were breaking dumping laws. They were deployed as broad, sweeping coercion to force Canada to the table to renegotiate the entire NAFTA agreement under threat of economic damage."
So yes. I agree there is an actual change vs. the post WW-II trajectory. At least in the public sphere. I don't know what used to happen behind closed doors. AI here says a lot of power struggles have happened (some specific examples but I'll spare you) but not in public. But argues that the shifting of those into the public sphere is a real change. And I agree with the AI overlords.
Most don’t see it as Trump’s fault. The trade agreement between the US and Canada allowed both sides to renegotiate the terms every six years. It also allowed both sides to withdraw if those negotiations failed. Trump simply took that option and proposed to renegotiate, which Canada rejected. So Trump took the obvious next step, exactly as anticipated by the treaty itself, and withdrew from it. Nobody should have been surprised by that.
Most Americans don’t have a problem with the content of Trump’s proposed treaty either. It would have lowered Canada’s tariffs on US dairy products down from 400% to whatever the US charges on Canadian dairy products. It would have allowed US banks to enter the Canadian market just as Canadian banks are allowed to operate in the US. Etc, etc.
Come on this is not just about trade disputes, though that side of things is also deeply screwed up.
Maybe some Americans don't take all the "51st State" and annexation talk that's become a full-on party line seriously, but Canadians are perfectly in their rights and sense to take it seriously and literally.
I actually disagree with you there. Trump is an open book. Literally, he published a book called “The Art of the Deal” where he described exactly how he negotiates. Anyone who doesn’t know at least the outline of what’s in that book is working at an extreme disadvantage. Go check out a copy from your local library!
First, he decides what he wants. He does this in advance specifically so that he can avoid agreeing to any deal that gives him less. Then he asks for the moon, knowing that the other party won’t want to give it all up. Instead he wants them to negotiate him down. He will agree to almost any deal that gives him what he wants, but of course hopes that they’ll give him more than that.
So when Trump says that Canada should join the US he is asking for the moon. He knows that Canada would never actually agree to it. It’s not an unjustifiable position; he can offer arguments about why they should (it simplifies the defense of the continent, it eliminates the expense of maintaining the border, it eliminates the possibility of trade barriers between us, etc, etc), but he expects to be talked down from that position. Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
So Canadians who took these statements “seriously and literally” were in fact overreacting.
I think you're operating in enough bad faith that normally I wouldn't respond, but on behalf of my northern friends, I gotta say
> Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
This is quite something. Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026, and the framework you've put this in is so far outside of any coherent diplomatic framework that it's outright an offense.
No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple states! What is wrong with you!
> I think you're operating in enough bad faith that normally I wouldn't respond
No, I am being completely straight forward about Trump. Go read the book.
> Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026…
There’s where you make your mistake. There’s no evidence of that at all. Well, he’s physically somewhat frail, but that’s pretty normal at his age.
> No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!
I think that Canadians are strong enough to rationally discuss any idea. We don’t need to shield them. Besides, apparently Canada is going to join the EU now. And they won’t even get to be a full member; they’re opting to be a junior partner instead. Will they even be allowed to vote on things, or will the EU expect them to meekly adopt whatever new rules they are given?
If Canada decides instead to team up with the USA then they should insist on becoming as many states as they can get away with. They are 10% of the US population and will therefore have about 10% of the seats in the House, but they should aim to have about 10% of the seats in the Senate as well. 13 new states would probably be a hard sell but you might be able to swing it.
If it makes you feel better, Trump and the ambassador to Canada probably never actually brought up the idea with the Canadians. They were negotiating in the context of the existing trade agreement so they were just talking about trade. The quip about the “51st state” was merely something Trump said on television.
Sure - some of what you have said has merit, however Trump has also initiated trade wars with pretty much every other country at the same time. He took advantage of the allowance to renegotiate and then instead of just keeping it within NAFTA, has expanded to a global scale.
The whole idea behind tariffs was to replace income taxes with them. The bonus was realizing that he could weaponize it.
Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.
The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.
It was also the US, not Canada, that declined to renew. Canada and Mexico both pushed for extension with the same administration that renegotiated NAFTA into CUSMA only a few years ago. So what changed exactly?
Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice. As I understand it the treaty doesn't set up "if negotiations fail, then withdraw" mechanism but IANAL.
The 400% dairy figure is incredbily inflated. The steep tariffs, roughly 200-300% depending on the product, apply only above quota, and in quota imports come into the states without duty. The US also runs its own dairy quotas, and it's incredibly disingenuous to portray Canada as the overbearing protectionist entity in a scenario where Americans twice elected a leader running on an overtly and relatively unprecedented (in modern times anyways) protectionist policy.
> The Canadian government made the soup themselves.
On this we are in full agreement. The integration of the Canadian economy into the American one has placed Canada in a precarious place and only further decoupling from America and seeking trading partners abroad will change that.
> The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.
> Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice.
These are good corrections; I was merely oversimplifying. The main point is that what Trump is doing is not some kind of horrible betrayal, he is simply using the terms of the treaty as written. The treaty explicitly specifies how and when either party can renegotiate, decline to renew, and withdraw. You could argue that the treaty ought to have been more permanent than that, but then your beef is not with Trump but with the Canadians who agreed to the treaty as written.
USMCA/CUSMA has an exit clause. Trump has not exercised that. The treaty is expected to be honoured by both sides during the reevaluation phase. Trump did not do that either. He simply violated the treaty.
As Carney has said, this President's signature is apparently in pencil. If you violate agreements you yourself signed, don't be surprised if people stop trusting you.
Finally, if the current trade deal was so awful... Trump negotiated that. One has to ask, what would it take for you to hold your glorious leader accountable for something he did?
As a Canadian, I love the American people but I feel like making these changes is a matter of national security. It's not really about TRUMP or Democrats or Republicans, it's a bigger directional change in Canada.
I think this was a much needed wake up call, perhaps a way to shed our naivete.
For years we have coupled ourselves to United States without thinking twice and it turns out that this was not a good idea.
I think we are going to see a very different Canada in the next decade or so. We will always maintain trade with United States but operate under another foreign policy.
I still feel like Canada is vulnerable, hopefully our government accelerates securing the nation on all fronts: military, trade, cyber and borders.
> without a major cultural and legal shift in the US
The legal shift is the key part. We've now discovered that the US has a very well thought-out separation of powers on paper, but it only exists on paper. There is no enforcement mechanism if a president decides none of that applies to them and they can role-play dictator. That means every future president can also do the same. So there is no way to trust anything the US says or does.
Unless there is a major constitutional reform soon that assures in absolute terms that no future president can ever overstep their constitutional authority. This is the legal reform necessary for any other country to ever trust the US.
When your population reaches 100 million, as is the plan... how much nostalgia could there even be? 70 million of those people won't remember any previous era, because they just stepped off the plane. For that matter, what sort of livelihood could there be? Are you planning on some resurgence of Canadian manufacturing? Steel maybe? Textiles? Maybe a film industry? Will you all be lawyers?
>For that matter, what sort of livelihood could there be? Are you planning on some resurgence of Canadian manufacturing? Steel maybe? Textiles? Maybe a film industry? Will you all be lawyers?
That's right only America is capable of providing a livelihood and productive economy for its citizens. Silly Canada, just become a client state and let America make all those hard decisions for you.
So someone Carney knows believes something, but no indication whether carney agrees? That is weak sauce.
More importantly, they are talking over a time frame of 2100. Doubling the population over the course of 75 years is probably fine. The economy can handle it over that time frame.
It's closer to tripling your population. Which is impossible if your fertility rate's below replacement... well, unless you import enough people that those imported outnumber those already there by 2 to 1.
I first learned of it here on HN, someone submitted it last year.
>The economy can handle it over that time frame.
What economy? Are you planning on finding jobs for tens of millions more people? One might say that you don't have enough jobs to go around as it is.
Sure, last year and the year before it slowed down, after several years of increasing record highs. 2021 - 2024 all had higher rates. We had over 2% for consecutive years.
More than 20% of Canada's current population was born outside of Canada. That's a substantial block of people!
I'm not against immigration by any means, but still. Immigrant Canadians are strongly likely to outnumber born Canadians in my lifetime
I asked some of my Indigenous friends here how that worked out for them and they said not great
Over the next 50 years, Canada is set to benefit immensely from climate change. Trade routes will open up, huge amounts of land will become arable, and resource extraction will become easier.
Unless that nostalgia is working in an office, not taking climate change seriously, insisting his ministers use British spelling and wear black (not brown!) shoes, or having the King read the speech from the throne.
Carney's status as some sort of visionary is a sham. Just another old fart with no new ideas.
Yeah, I don't think they understand that we're not "with them" either, and while ending hostilities would be viewed favorably, no one here is sympathizing with the American left either. You can only be so patient with the idea that parading around with protest signs is actually doing anything.
>As a US citizen, I just want to add that I hope some day we can reestablish a healthy relationship with our neighbors. These articles are saddening.
Canadian here. It'll be at least a generation, if it ever happens at all. I have two kids in elementary school and every single one of their peers is talking about America as a threat. More than once I've had one of my kids ask me if it's true Donald Trump wants to take over Canada. It's a whole generation of children growing up resentful of America, viewing it as a threat rather than an ally. Those attitudes aren't going to just evaporate after Trump leaves office.
I took no end of downvotes and snarky comments from arrogant Americans on this fucking website for suggesting that the old days are not coming back, largely because Canadians have realized that Trump is broadly representative of Americans. He is a symptom of an underlying sickness. The problem is Americans themselves.
To wit: Harris got 75 million votes in 2024[0]. The total voting-age population is roughly 270 million [1], which means less than a third of the US electorate voted against Trump. The remaining two thirds either voted for him or were sufficiently unbothered so as to not vote at all. So we see a bunch of Americans in the media or on socials crying crocodile tears about how tHeIr AlLiEs ArE sO vAlUaBlE tO tHeM and traitors in the Alberta government notwithstanding I think broadly speaking Canadians realize it's bullshit and have moved on. Any treaty the US signs is not worth the paper it's printed on.
This schism is permanent, and I think Americans have yet to comprehend just how much foreign attitudes towards America have moved over the last year and a half.
Many Americans fail to realize that this isn't merely about trade, or even primarily about trade. Trump has continually made belittling comments about Canada, posted AI videos of him beating up Carney, threatened to annex the country, etc.. This plays well to his base, but has derailed what would have otherwise been a discussion about trade.
Canada has continually accepted bad trade deals from the U.S.. They've been imposed on us by both democratic and republican governments. If the U.S, for example, says "Canada, you have too many trees. Our tree farmers can't compete so we're tariffing those.", there's not much we can do. We do have rather a lot of trees. If Trump had been respectful, he'd have his updated treaty by now and Canadian goods would likely be under some degree of permanent tariff's. Thanks to Trump running his mouth, the trade dispute became a matter of national sovereignty that has been under a microscope for the last year and a half. Trump's rhetoric has made it impossible for Canadian politicians to capitulate. Trade is, ideally, about both sides winning, but Trump has formulated things so that the U.S. can't win if Canada doesn't lose. Canadians are now unwilling to accept another loss. The result is an impasse.
The problem going forward is that Trump is still continually insulting and threatening the U.S.'s closest allies, and Americans have done nothing to stop him. Not one thing of substance. You can have impeachments like hobbits have breakfasts, but nothing ever seems to touch Trump. He does what he wants. The U.S. needs to have its Magna Carta moment and rein in its king. Your system has failed to the point where we'd rather not live on the same continent as you. If we could saw it off at the 49th parallel and push our part of the continent closer to either Asia or Europe, we would.
As a US citizen, you should be angrier than Canadians are. Your nation is poorer, embroiled in unnecessary wars, and has lost significant international influence because of Trump. The consequences of what he has done will take decades to play out, and there's little the next president can do to mitigate them. Donald Trump is Making America Go Away, and Americans are continuing to let him do it.
Carney has quite a unique opportunity for massive public spending that would have never been popular in any other case. The US always kept Canada well enough that the economy was "good enough" with declining infrastructure and underinvestment (capital fleeing to better return in the states).
Now that he can claim to have no choice and people are really mad, then he can even force retirement funds to invest massively here through those "nationnaly important projects". If successful that would seriously boost our stagnant productivity and economy.
Yes it's a reflection of the WWE, a great excuse to trample indiginous lands yet again. The political class should be required to wear leotards only, this way you can know their true nature.
> it continues to absolutely boggle my mind how few people realize that refineries in the US Rockies, Plains, Midwest/Great Lakes rely so heavily on millions of barrels of Canadian crude oil every day and have since the 1950s
> if Canada were to pull the plug on sending the US oil- even for a week- states like MT, ID, WY, UT, ND, SD, NE, OK, MO, IA, MN, WI, IL, MI, IN, OH, KY, and TN would nearly immediately see huge problems.
> most people in the Midwest have heard of BP's refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The largest in the region, 440,000bpd of capacity. When it goes down, it's often mentioned. Do most know ~85% of Whiting's feedstock is Canadian oil? just imagine if Canada pulled the plug.
Canada has slashed vehicle import tariffs, and Geely and BYD are both setting up operations. This concern declines into the future as Canada ramps their EV imports from China.
Canada's light vehicle market is only ~<2M vehicles/year; China exports that many EVs every two months, and continues to scale up, constrained only by marine capacity. Canada will keep importing EVs to move away from needing refined petroleum products, and work towards diversifying away from supplying the US with petroleum.
> In January, Canada and China announced a “new strategic partnership” that would allow 49,000 Chinese EVs to be imported at a most-favored-nation tariff rate of 6.1%.
What you are suggesting combined with current policy directions (both in US and Canada) will mean the end of the Canadian automotive manufacturing sector.
With the introduction of imports from China it will mean that Canada does not even supply itself domestically.
What are the economic consequences to Canada for the destruction of potentially hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. And maybe more specifically to Canadians?
The regime in charge of Canada is anti resource development (not just even oil). While they may be considering a change in tune there is a clear history of this. Why would the regime that has brought Canada to this state lead Canada to the promise land?
I don't get it. Why does Alberta need a pipeline to the Pacific for if they don't like being part of Canada? Isn't exporting to US more aligned with their interests?
79 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 34.4 ms ] threadAs a US citizen, I just want to add that I hope some day we can reestablish a healthy relationship with our neighbors. These articles are saddening.
This isn't a deeply unpopular anomaly. This is a significant chunk of America, and they may easily regain the majority if the economy improves in a few years (or if it worsens further under a Democratic president).
Current day politics are about polarization. More so than ever. There is no room for nuance. This is what worked for Trump and this is what worked for Carney and the Liberals in Canada. The Liberals didn't win on some brilliant policies they simply won on anti-American feelings.
This is not a statement on who is right or wrong. There are certainly many aspects of Trump's behaviour here that most would say are wrong. The problem is when we lose nuance and debate we can't make progress. But a leader in today's world that introduces nuance loses to the leader that polarizes. Dragging us all down.
American re-elected him, despite the cronyism, jan 6, mental decline, etc. Combined with the democrats are so self defeating and they also repeatedly poked at trade issues (the loooooong running softwood lumber disputes, Keystone XL, "buy American" provisions that ignored NAFTA/USMCA for projects that were going ahead w/o the provisions, etc).
We know what populism is (we've experienced and are experiencing it ourselves) and know that it is usually fleeting, but we don't trust another "smarter" nativist president to come along and screw us again.
Also, there's an internal game going on here. Canada has (institutionally) took the "easy" way out of controversial projects, often due to our proximity to the US. This has meant that when some projects run into a greater than normal amount of political resistance (eg environmental fights against pipelines or LNG terminals), the default has usually been to back off. But Trump has in a way given cover to actually move forward.
I don't expect the next president to "cave" so easily. Even before he was sworn in, republicans had their messaging in full swing against Obama about the deficit. I fully expect the same thing to hammer the next president on trade if they're a democrat.
I don't see how Canada can trust us again without a major cultural and legal shift in the US. The fact is that any president can, apparently, unilaterally shred international friendships, and 30%-40% of Americans will cheer it on.
I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
That's not the problem.
The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected. If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.
But instead of that we got TINA and Trump.
> I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
Easy: just repeal democracy. Make elected officials advisors at best, and vest all power in unelected officials that will uphold the status quo.
I agree with you and I wish more people would understand that Trump is only a symptom of the issue.
Its the same in Europe where everyone is somehow discovering in 2026 that the far-right and far-left parties actually want to do what they say they will do if they get in power.
Instead of addressing the concerns of the population, all they do is talk about how bad these parties would be and try every which way to contain them except never trying to even understand or fix the issues these people are complaining about.
It was the same strategy used by Macron in France in 2017 and 2022.
Step 1: Pretend you care and tinker on the margins but fundamentally don't change anything. Step 2: Paint the opposition on the left and right as monsters that will bring chaos and disorder to the country. Step 3: Present yourself as the only one capable of containing said chaos.
In one word: TINA
Except TINA is no longer working and the mainstream parties are being challenged a lot more because people have trusted them for so long and they are no longer interested in waiting for them to actually deliver on what they promised to do years ago.
So you get Reform in the UK, One Nation in Australia, National Rally in France, the AFD in Germany, Swedish democrats in Sweden and much more....
The parties in charge could have tried to address the issues that are fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe, they could have listened to the concerns of their citizens even if they did not agree with their ideas.
Instead, they have let the situation deteriorate and portrayed themselves as the only solution to the problems they never addressed and it backfired spectacularly.
As Jack Kerouac said: After Me, the Deluge.
That might be america's problem but its not my problem. It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump. It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
I was responding to a self-identified American wishing America would return to the prior status quo. It seems like you're in the wrong subthread.
> It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump.
It's worth noting those dynamics aren't unique to the US.
> It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack). Some of the vibes I pick up around those topics come off as entitled, which is is not a good look.
yeah, that is how being a hegemon works. There are benefits and drawbacks to that, but lets not pretend like USA didn't get a lot of benefits out of the arrangement.
In any case, seems like that era is mostly coming to an end.
It's sounds just like you are believing your own propaganda. This behaviour was intended and encouraged by the US. They would still prefer for it to stay that way, even if they are saying otherwise domestically. Look how they try to sabotage the other countries, now that they try to actually uncouple from the US.
From which country?
Are 30%-40% of Americans really cheering for shredding of the friendship with Canada? Is that supported by some specific survey or are we just looking at approval ratings or some proxy?
Isn't this more or less normal for the USA in the broader perspective? Certainly had some very weird presidents in the past? We had things like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement
I feel like we're just not living in normal times. The lack of normalcy is social media, conspiracy theories, politics. This isn't simply a US-Canada relationship question and "return to normalcy" isn't really just about "how do we ensure a certain level of quality of leadership". I'm not even sure what's normal any more ;)
https://leger360.com/in-the-news-canada-us-trade-war-canadia...
https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/OMNI_tradewa...
"Our latest survey finds that 41% of Canadians now consider the United States an enemy country, up 15 points from June 2025. At the same time, 64% say their impression of the United States would change if Donald Trump were no longer president."
I find this insane. Also the weighting towards 55+, male, Quebec, is interesting. It says something about how humans are easy to influence IMO. Not exactly a surprise I guess looking at humanity as a whole but something I would have hoped we had some immunity to in free western societies.
In fact the very foundation of Canada is a response to the US threat.
So yes. I agree there is an actual change vs. the post WW-II trajectory. At least in the public sphere. I don't know what used to happen behind closed doors. AI here says a lot of power struggles have happened (some specific examples but I'll spare you) but not in public. But argues that the shifting of those into the public sphere is a real change. And I agree with the AI overlords.
Most Americans don’t have a problem with the content of Trump’s proposed treaty either. It would have lowered Canada’s tariffs on US dairy products down from 400% to whatever the US charges on Canadian dairy products. It would have allowed US banks to enter the Canadian market just as Canadian banks are allowed to operate in the US. Etc, etc.
The Canadian government made the soup themselves.
Maybe some Americans don't take all the "51st State" and annexation talk that's become a full-on party line seriously, but Canadians are perfectly in their rights and sense to take it seriously and literally.
First, he decides what he wants. He does this in advance specifically so that he can avoid agreeing to any deal that gives him less. Then he asks for the moon, knowing that the other party won’t want to give it all up. Instead he wants them to negotiate him down. He will agree to almost any deal that gives him what he wants, but of course hopes that they’ll give him more than that.
So when Trump says that Canada should join the US he is asking for the moon. He knows that Canada would never actually agree to it. It’s not an unjustifiable position; he can offer arguments about why they should (it simplifies the defense of the continent, it eliminates the expense of maintaining the border, it eliminates the possibility of trade barriers between us, etc, etc), but he expects to be talked down from that position. Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
So Canadians who took these statements “seriously and literally” were in fact overreacting.
> Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
This is quite something. Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026, and the framework you've put this in is so far outside of any coherent diplomatic framework that it's outright an offense.
No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple states! What is wrong with you!
No, I am being completely straight forward about Trump. Go read the book.
> Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026…
There’s where you make your mistake. There’s no evidence of that at all. Well, he’s physically somewhat frail, but that’s pretty normal at his age.
> No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!
I think that Canadians are strong enough to rationally discuss any idea. We don’t need to shield them. Besides, apparently Canada is going to join the EU now. And they won’t even get to be a full member; they’re opting to be a junior partner instead. Will they even be allowed to vote on things, or will the EU expect them to meekly adopt whatever new rules they are given?
If Canada decides instead to team up with the USA then they should insist on becoming as many states as they can get away with. They are 10% of the US population and will therefore have about 10% of the seats in the House, but they should aim to have about 10% of the seats in the Senate as well. 13 new states would probably be a hard sell but you might be able to swing it.
If it makes you feel better, Trump and the ambassador to Canada probably never actually brought up the idea with the Canadians. They were negotiating in the context of the existing trade agreement so they were just talking about trade. The quip about the “51st state” was merely something Trump said on television.
Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.
The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.
It was also the US, not Canada, that declined to renew. Canada and Mexico both pushed for extension with the same administration that renegotiated NAFTA into CUSMA only a few years ago. So what changed exactly?
Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice. As I understand it the treaty doesn't set up "if negotiations fail, then withdraw" mechanism but IANAL.
The 400% dairy figure is incredbily inflated. The steep tariffs, roughly 200-300% depending on the product, apply only above quota, and in quota imports come into the states without duty. The US also runs its own dairy quotas, and it's incredibly disingenuous to portray Canada as the overbearing protectionist entity in a scenario where Americans twice elected a leader running on an overtly and relatively unprecedented (in modern times anyways) protectionist policy.
> The Canadian government made the soup themselves.
On this we are in full agreement. The integration of the Canadian economy into the American one has placed Canada in a precarious place and only further decoupling from America and seeking trading partners abroad will change that.
https://cassels.com/insights/cusmsa-still-in-force-notwithst...
> Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice.
These are good corrections; I was merely oversimplifying. The main point is that what Trump is doing is not some kind of horrible betrayal, he is simply using the terms of the treaty as written. The treaty explicitly specifies how and when either party can renegotiate, decline to renew, and withdraw. You could argue that the treaty ought to have been more permanent than that, but then your beef is not with Trump but with the Canadians who agreed to the treaty as written.
As Carney has said, this President's signature is apparently in pencil. If you violate agreements you yourself signed, don't be surprised if people stop trusting you.
Finally, if the current trade deal was so awful... Trump negotiated that. One has to ask, what would it take for you to hold your glorious leader accountable for something he did?
I think this was a much needed wake up call, perhaps a way to shed our naivete.
For years we have coupled ourselves to United States without thinking twice and it turns out that this was not a good idea.
I think we are going to see a very different Canada in the next decade or so. We will always maintain trade with United States but operate under another foreign policy.
I still feel like Canada is vulnerable, hopefully our government accelerates securing the nation on all fronts: military, trade, cyber and borders.
The legal shift is the key part. We've now discovered that the US has a very well thought-out separation of powers on paper, but it only exists on paper. There is no enforcement mechanism if a president decides none of that applies to them and they can role-play dictator. That means every future president can also do the same. So there is no way to trust anything the US says or does.
Unless there is a major constitutional reform soon that assures in absolute terms that no future president can ever overstep their constitutional authority. This is the legal reform necessary for any other country to ever trust the US.
That's right only America is capable of providing a livelihood and productive economy for its citizens. Silly Canada, just become a client state and let America make all those hard decisions for you.
Canada has a massive amount of untapped potential, and it’s time we tap it.
Last year our population only grew by 0.5%. We have a long time before it doubles.
More importantly, they are talking over a time frame of 2100. Doubling the population over the course of 75 years is probably fine. The economy can handle it over that time frame.
I first learned of it here on HN, someone submitted it last year.
>The economy can handle it over that time frame.
What economy? Are you planning on finding jobs for tens of millions more people? One might say that you don't have enough jobs to go around as it is.
Population almost exactly tripled in the last 75 years, though.
More than 20% of Canada's current population was born outside of Canada. That's a substantial block of people!
I'm not against immigration by any means, but still. Immigrant Canadians are strongly likely to outnumber born Canadians in my lifetime
I asked some of my Indigenous friends here how that worked out for them and they said not great
Carney's status as some sort of visionary is a sham. Just another old fart with no new ideas.
Canadian here. It'll be at least a generation, if it ever happens at all. I have two kids in elementary school and every single one of their peers is talking about America as a threat. More than once I've had one of my kids ask me if it's true Donald Trump wants to take over Canada. It's a whole generation of children growing up resentful of America, viewing it as a threat rather than an ally. Those attitudes aren't going to just evaporate after Trump leaves office.
I took no end of downvotes and snarky comments from arrogant Americans on this fucking website for suggesting that the old days are not coming back, largely because Canadians have realized that Trump is broadly representative of Americans. He is a symptom of an underlying sickness. The problem is Americans themselves.
To wit: Harris got 75 million votes in 2024[0]. The total voting-age population is roughly 270 million [1], which means less than a third of the US electorate voted against Trump. The remaining two thirds either voted for him or were sufficiently unbothered so as to not vote at all. So we see a bunch of Americans in the media or on socials crying crocodile tears about how tHeIr AlLiEs ArE sO vAlUaBlE tO tHeM and traitors in the Alberta government notwithstanding I think broadly speaking Canadians realize it's bullshit and have moved on. Any treaty the US signs is not worth the paper it's printed on.
This schism is permanent, and I think Americans have yet to comprehend just how much foreign attitudes towards America have moved over the last year and a half.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/29/2024-06...
Just write "Thoughts and prayers!" and save us all some time.
Canada has continually accepted bad trade deals from the U.S.. They've been imposed on us by both democratic and republican governments. If the U.S, for example, says "Canada, you have too many trees. Our tree farmers can't compete so we're tariffing those.", there's not much we can do. We do have rather a lot of trees. If Trump had been respectful, he'd have his updated treaty by now and Canadian goods would likely be under some degree of permanent tariff's. Thanks to Trump running his mouth, the trade dispute became a matter of national sovereignty that has been under a microscope for the last year and a half. Trump's rhetoric has made it impossible for Canadian politicians to capitulate. Trade is, ideally, about both sides winning, but Trump has formulated things so that the U.S. can't win if Canada doesn't lose. Canadians are now unwilling to accept another loss. The result is an impasse.
The problem going forward is that Trump is still continually insulting and threatening the U.S.'s closest allies, and Americans have done nothing to stop him. Not one thing of substance. You can have impeachments like hobbits have breakfasts, but nothing ever seems to touch Trump. He does what he wants. The U.S. needs to have its Magna Carta moment and rein in its king. Your system has failed to the point where we'd rather not live on the same continent as you. If we could saw it off at the 49th parallel and push our part of the continent closer to either Asia or Europe, we would.
As a US citizen, you should be angrier than Canadians are. Your nation is poorer, embroiled in unnecessary wars, and has lost significant international influence because of Trump. The consequences of what he has done will take decades to play out, and there's little the next president can do to mitigate them. Donald Trump is Making America Go Away, and Americans are continuing to let him do it.
Carney is a weasel like all of them.
Now that he can claim to have no choice and people are really mad, then he can even force retirement funds to invest massively here through those "nationnaly important projects". If successful that would seriously boost our stagnant productivity and economy.
Trump threatens the EU, the EU has a reason to implement popular measures.
Trump is the salesman and Reality TV host, the plans are made elsewhere.
wot? Funds for peoples retirements should be invested to maximize their return. They shouldnt be "forced" to invest in ... whatever is happening here.
> it continues to absolutely boggle my mind how few people realize that refineries in the US Rockies, Plains, Midwest/Great Lakes rely so heavily on millions of barrels of Canadian crude oil every day and have since the 1950s
> if Canada were to pull the plug on sending the US oil- even for a week- states like MT, ID, WY, UT, ND, SD, NE, OK, MO, IA, MN, WI, IL, MI, IN, OH, KY, and TN would nearly immediately see huge problems.
> most people in the Midwest have heard of BP's refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The largest in the region, 440,000bpd of capacity. When it goes down, it's often mentioned. Do most know ~85% of Whiting's feedstock is Canadian oil? just imagine if Canada pulled the plug.
Canada's light vehicle market is only ~<2M vehicles/year; China exports that many EVs every two months, and continues to scale up, constrained only by marine capacity. Canada will keep importing EVs to move away from needing refined petroleum products, and work towards diversifying away from supplying the US with petroleum.
https://www.carscoops.com/2026/09/canada-chinese-ev-imports/
> In January, Canada and China announced a “new strategic partnership” that would allow 49,000 Chinese EVs to be imported at a most-favored-nation tariff rate of 6.1%.
https://robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/?lang=en&freq=monthl...
With the introduction of imports from China it will mean that Canada does not even supply itself domestically.
What are the economic consequences to Canada for the destruction of potentially hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. And maybe more specifically to Canadians?
The regime in charge of Canada is anti resource development (not just even oil). While they may be considering a change in tune there is a clear history of this. Why would the regime that has brought Canada to this state lead Canada to the promise land?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/carney-warning-fossil-fuel-...
Canada does not actually have much real industry to speak of. One merely needs to look at the top 10 largest companies in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_C...
This is an extremely weak economy that has a significant dependency on resources but with a regime that is anti resource extraction.
Canada is a decade into its 40 years wander of the desert.